Horn of Africa

Closer still the next morning - rushing to the waterhole to start work not long after dawn. Rounding a tower of deep red rocks, Stephane slams on the brakes. A white rhino cow and her almost-grown calf are nosing the grille of our Land Rover. The whites - the same rough grey hide despite the moniker, but with a wider muzzle - are by nature less aggressive than the blacks. Nonetheless they march menacingly round the vehicle, dropping their heads to show us their horns. My, what a big, sharp, scary appendage that is.

Sitting in my usual spot in the middle of the back seat, I am comforted to note that I am protected not just by sturdy British panel work, but by a United Nations of human shields - Namibian, Northern Irish, South African, North American (two of these) and French Madagascan. As fond as I have grown of my companions - their adventurous tales, their generous humour, their relentless flattery (these are good odds, ladies), their campfire philosophies and, in the case of the Frenchman, his cooking - right now I am merely grateful for their collective, horn-absorbing bulk.

What can I say. Life's like that in the wild.

Exposing the primitive soul is the key to the allure of Earthwatch expeditions. A chance for accountants, engineers, town planners, architects and journalists (that's our group in real life) to get in touch with their inner caveperson/hunter/gatherer.

To shed their civilised skin. To channel their frustrated field scientist, or assuage the guilt of a lifetime of environmental vandalism by doing something feel-good for the planet.

For the traveller weary of tourism, it's a chance to spend time in often remote, pristine locations with a task that allows you to learn some aspect of that environment oh-so intimately. (By the end of this trip, I can identify a dozen species of acacia at a glance. And pick black rhino tracks and turds from white ones. Stick that in your CV.)

For the person looking for a relaxing holiday, it's a dead loss.

"Are we actually of any use to you?" I ask Stephane on the three-hour drive from Windhoek, the Namibian capital, up to our home for the next 14 days - a rough campsite on the Waterberg Plateau in the country's north-east. I'm wondering if volunteers are just window-dressing, burdens the scientists must usefully occupy in order to get Earthwatch funding to support their work. But no, Stephane assures me. "I 'ave lots of work for you to do."

Yes he has. "Time to get up," he hollers just after dawn, rattling the breakfast dishes to rouse those of us still snuggled on our one-inch mattresses, atop our concrete beds, inside our simple stone "bangalows". Most mornings I am already high on the rocks encircling our camp. I'm watching the sun creep above the eastern edge of the plateau and slowly drench the plain and rocks in thin, pure light. I repeat the routine every evening, when the sunset throws a deep red wash over a horizon of rocks reminiscent of the Bungle Bungles.

Geographically and environmentally, the plateau is fascinating. Covering an area of about 400 square kilometres, it looms above the surrounding savannah, protected on all sides by cliffs of steep sedimentary sandstone, the slowly crumbling remnant of long-lost landscape. Because of its natural fortifications there are few poachers (none for more than a decade), there are only a limited number of predators (a few cheetahs, leopards and hyenas - no lions), and once animals are on the plateau they can't get off. It is used by the Namibian Government as a sanctuary to breed up populations of endangered species that are then moved out to other parks.

By 7am we should be crammed into the Land Rover. Stephane blasts the horn like an impatient suitor if we are not. And we are on our way, today's lunch packed, yesterday's blisters dressed, copious water bottles full. The commute to work is up to an hour depending on the location of the waterhole, the wildlife traffic, and the depth of the engulfing red sand we must plough through. It is my favourite part of the day. The animals are on the move.

Giraffes barely bestir themselves. Sometimes they will break into that unhurried gallop I always thought was slow motion when I saw it on television. Rich breathing coats of sable - an antelope rarity brought here for its survival - cross the road ahead. A thundering herd of eland. Disconcertingly lovely oryx - Stephane does a mean oryx steak. I try not to think about it. He slows or stops to let us get our fill of every unfamiliar creature.

Once at the waterhole, Stephane and Johnny will study the pockmarks in the sand to divine a fresh black rhino track. We follow it into the desert. Sometimes the path will be long - 14 kilometres was our longest trek. Sometimes it will soon be lost in the scrub. Sometimes we walk without a pause, because the rhino did just that, and sometimes we stop every few metres because the rhino was on a bender, and we get lots of lovely data. Hundreds of "bites", and within each bite, every munched stem and twig measured - "less than three millimetres, greater than six, greater than 10, less than three ..." is the mumbled mantra as we work our way across the plateau with our gauges and clipboards.

If we are lucky we will find a pile of fresh rhino dung, and wrench it from the insistent grasp of the dung beetles. This must be some of the most valuable shit on the planet, declares Stephane - what it costs to access, locate, collect and analyse doesn't bear thinking about. He's talking about sending some of it to Australia for analysis. First class, of course.

Sometimes we siesta in imaginings of shade, the ants crawling over us. Or sit when the heat moves surely into the 40s, working with secateurs to chop up samples of foliage. "The Waterberg Ladies Gardening Club," laughs Stephane. But the last laugh is on him - he will spend the next two years in a laboratory in Johannesburg processing our work.

These paper bags of dung and foliage, the grimy data sheets of bites and species, will reveal much about the diet and lifestyle of the black rhino. Ultimately this information will be used to decide which locations will be used to breed up wild black rhinos, and to tell zoos what to feed their captive populations.

This is often the nature of Earthwatch work, I am assured by my more experienced fellow travellers. Variously painstaking, painful, intricate, exciting, mind-numbing. Niall is a wiry 60-something Northern Irishman with a brain that is a treasure trove of history, geography, philosophy and jokes (not all of them ripe). He has an eye for almost invisible beauty, and in a vast landscape of blinding splendour will find a spider's web, a hidden nest, a lonely wildflower. This is his fifth Earthwatch expedition: he's tracked black bears in North Carolina; studied the eagles of Mull (Scotland); counted macaws in the Peruvian Amazon and tagged crocodiles in the Mexican mangroves.

Dave, from Oregon, on his third expedition, is an engineer who has reinvented himself as a wildlife photographer. Something of a wild creature himself, he is so quietly at ease with nature that he moseys right into the personal space of the most twitchy, nervous, dangerous creatures, and captures them on candid camera. On both his previous trips he has stalked grizzly bears.

These veterans think this trip is something special - but they all are, at the time. Our meals, thanks to Stephane, are campfire cuisine at its finest. The amenities are basic - but a toilet roll threaded on the horn of a red hartebeest has a style all of its own. The shower and toilet are housed in a simple stone structure with no roof, so at sundown you can watch the weaver birds work while you dance around the termites and wash your hair. Late back one night, in the dark, I showered with a bat.

The tap handles hang on nails away from the faucet to foil the baboons. They foil most of us too in our clumsy morning ablutions. The loo has an uninterrupted sky view. Very pleasant for a contemplative morning movement. But it's here I discover a hitherto unknown consequence of living with people who don't put the seat down. The porcelain can get very warm under the African sun. For a minute there, late one afternoon, I leap and yelp like a hyena and wonder if there is a little corner of me that will be forever branded Namibia.

But as on any trip, the greatest danger and greatest joy rests with your human companions. We are a curious collection of neuroses - perhaps with the exception of Dave, who seems oddly normal, and Johnny, who just seems bemused. So much Stuff is soon apparent that I begin to grow suspicious. "I don't think you're interested in the rhinos at all," I eventually blurt accusingly at Stephane. "I reckon, halfway back to Jo'burg, you will pull over and throw all these samples and all this shit out the window. What you're REALLY studying is us."

He concedes that having hosted six Earthwatch expeditions, he probably has enough data on human behaviour in extreme environments to write a small treatise. As a group, ours is right up there, he admits - but blessedly, it works. Nature is full of surprises.

Our tasks are usually over by mid-afternoon. For fun, we are soon back at the waterhole, but this time in the dark cool of the hide. With biltong and beer, maybe a book, we settle in for long hours to watch the animals late into the evening, and when the moon is full, later still.

We get to know Namibian society. The giraffes are, of course, the models. The baboons are the raucous trash no one wants living next door. The wart-hogs, strutting pompous and important until some other creature calls their bluff, are the politicians. The eland, moving in vast herds of indistinguishable grey, are the middle class. The sable and roan - a little showier, but just as cautious - the professional classes? Our favourites, the rhinos, are the sports jocks, declares Stephane, who knows them best. All hide, no brains.

When there's no action, we pour water over our heads, strip off as many clothes as decent, and stretch out on the cool rock benches to doze. Someone is always on lookout, and will wake us if a rhino comes in, or if the giraffes get randy.

It's the greatest show on earth, and it's all ours.

Fast facts

The Namibian Black Rhinos project is now completed, but Earthwatch has many more projects requiring volunteers in Africa and elsewhere. These include monitoring white rhinos, zebras and giraffes in the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi game reserve, South Africa. The expedition cost is $3500 for two weeks - and for this you get gas lamps, pit toilets and hot bucket showers!

Other offerings include studying the creatures of the Amazon on a riverboat expedition ($3995), and diving with the whale sharks of Ningaloo Reef ($3750).

The Earthwatch junkies I travelled with say you must study what's on offer very closely before signing up. The briefings - available on the site earthwatch.org - will give you a good idea of the work involved, the fitness requirements, the accommodation standards and any inherent risks. There are trips that will give you a soft bed and a hot shower each night, some tasks that will be more dangerous than others, and locations where there will be no creature comforts at the end of a day exposed to extreme conditions. And go with your heart and your interests. Sitting in the Peruvian canopy silently counting birds for hours and days on end will not be for everyone.

Earthwatch trips are not cheap. They include a sizeable donation to the work.

For full briefings of the trips mentioned above, and 32 others on offer this year, go to earthwatch.org or call the Melbourne office on 9682 6828 for the new season brochure at $15.

The Waterberg Plateau

Getting there: There are no direct flights to Namibia from Australia. Qantas and South African Airways are offering direct return flights to Johannesburg for $2400 in March. I flew Singapore Airlines - it took a lot longer but offers flights for $1600. Air Namibia, British Airways and South African Airways all fly Johannesburg to Windhoek. Prices are listed at about $460 return, but vary dramatically.

From Windhoek, it is a three-hour drive to the town of Otjiwarongo. The plateau is 60 kilometres east. It's possible to get there using local buses or fairly cheaply by taxi, but if you want to get onto the plateau and visit some hides you might want to go there with a safari or tour company as private vehicles have limited access. There are several hiking trails through the park (remember - trees, two metres).

Staying there: The camp we used is not available to the general public. The closest accommodation is the Waterberg Plateau Park resort (Barnebe de la Bat Resort) at the base of the plateau, which has accommodation ranging from luxury cabins to camping grounds, and has a swimming pool with a stunning view of the sandstone plateau walls. There is also a warden's office here which can give you information on visiting the park. Visit resafrica.net/waterberg

More information: Visit Namibia Tourism at namibiatourism.com or phone 264 61 240751. Also Namibia Reservations in Otjiwarongo, phone 264 67 304716 or namibiareservations.com.

Visas: No.